


Spoiler: Nami Doesn't Get Any Money Out of This

by gestalts



Category: One Piece
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22665196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestalts/pseuds/gestalts
Summary: In where even Luffy can see Sanji and Zoro need to date already. A competition ends up into both of them stumbling ass backwards into romance, somehow.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 9
Kudos: 125





	Spoiler: Nami Doesn't Get Any Money Out of This

**Author's Note:**

> *whips and naenaes* so yeah i am. very new to this writing thing. yell at me in the comments if i got their characterization wrong :pensive:
> 
> anyways enjoy

"You guys should just date already," Luffy pipes up in the middle of Zoro and Sanji butting heads yet again one morning on the deck. At this, everyone around stops what they're doing and stares. Sanji inhales the rest of his cigarette. Zoro freezes. They simultaneously send a look so scathing at Luffy that it was a surprise he wasn't a smear of ash on the floorboards.

"Are you brain dead? Why would I want to date the ero-cook?!" Zoro barks at Luffy, crossing his arms and glaring at said chef.

Usopp looks over from where he's reeling in fish and dropping them into a bucket full of ice. "Well, I mean, that tension between you two is very romanti--" He's cut off by Sanji and Zoro directing their gaze at him. "I said nothing!" Usopp frantically turns back to his fishing rod, whistling an off key tune.

Sanji shakes his head and puts an arm on his hip. "Putting aside the absolute absurdity of that suggestion, this absolute heathen over here," he says, jerking his head in Zoro's general direction, "wouldn't know how to be romantic even if his life was on the line."

"As if you'd be any better, dartbrow." He huffs. "'Everyone you've tried to pick up has rejected you horribly."

"At least I respect women, you feral dog of a man."

"It's called treating them like actual humans, shitty cook!"

Seeing the back and forth between the two teetering close to an actual brawl, Nami, who had been observing the interaction, decides to both diffuse the situation and make some of that glorious coin.

She cuts in the argument with a tone not unlike a used ship salesman trying to goad some poor schmuck into buying his wares. "Well, gentlemen, why don't you both actually find out who's the better romantic partner through a.... friendly competition?"

Zoro squints at her. He didn't trust Nami's greasy salesman smile, nor did he trust the words "friendly competition".

Sanji, on the other hand, snaps his head towards the navigator like an attentive puppy. "What do you suggest, Nami-swan?"

Nami's grin widened even more. He fell for it hook, line and sinker, the poor schmuck.

Zoro definitely did not trust this.

"What if you both dated each other to see who's the better boyfriend?" She starts. In a tone that belied that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, she continues. "Obviously none of the crew could date you both because of... possible biases!"

As soon as she finishes, Zoro's head whips to Sanji so fast it was a wonder he didn't break it. "Him? Date? _Me_? Hell no!"

Sanji, meanwhile, had started laughing halfway hysterically, as if he meant to laugh nervously, but rolled down the slippery slope of demented. "Oh, Nami-swan, you jester! What a hilarious concept!"

Sanji continues to laugh for a few seconds, before he realizes Nami isn't kidding, and his laughter peters out and he goes silent. "Oh. Surely you can't be serious."

Nami smiles brightly at him. "Oh, of course I'm a hundred percent serious. Why wouldn't I be?"

Zoro finally has enough of this absurd situation he's gotten himself into, and he decides to extricate himself from it. "Alright, I'm out. I'm going to nap and forget all this happened. No one wake me up."

Just as he's started to head up the crow's nest to nap, he hears Nami sigh and and say, "Oh, that's too bad, Zoro. I guess you're too much of a coward to go through with mthis competition."

Like a switch, Zoro’s apparently sold on the idea. "What'd you say, sea-witch?! I'm not a coward! In fact, I'm going to date the hell out of shit-cook right goddamn now, and he's going to like it!"

He stomps over to Sanji and grabs his arm. "Wha- hey, let me go, mosshead!" Sanji's about to wind himself into a whole tirade, but he notices that Zoro hasn't done anything except grabbing his arm. In fact, he's oddly still. He looks up at Zoro. He's looking at him very intensely.

Sanji feels his ears go hot. "W-what are you looking at?"

"Oi, shit-cook. Date me."

... And the moment is broken. "What? No!"

Zoro shrugs and lets go of his arm. "Yeah, that decides it. I'm definitely the better boyfriend."

Well if he was going to put it like that, he wasn't letting Zoro one-up him in that area. "Getting rejected doesn't make you the better boyfriend, dumbass. You know what, let's do it right here, right now! Let's date."

He mirrors Zoro’s movements and grabs the swordsman, looking him right in the eye, powering through… an emotion he refused to name. “We’re boyfriends now. You’re going to regret challenging my romantic prowess.”

Then he kisses Zoro on the cheek in a very boyfriend-like manner.

Sanji turns around and walks towards the galley, and however tempted he was to look back and look at Zoro’s face, he keeps his gaze forward.

He had a romantic candlelight dinner to arrange.

-

After this whole sequence of events, Zoro, looking very stunned, excuses himself to go up to the crow’s nest.

When Nami sees Zoro settle into the alcove above, she immediately gestures to the rest of the crew on the deck, and they scramble to huddle together like some kind of strange sports team.

“So, my bets are that they realize that they’re actually dating DATING after a week and finally get together,” Usopp whispers surreptitiously.

“Enjoy losing all of your money,” Nami shoots back, her voice a furious rasp. Her eyes are manic with the thought of raking in that sweet, sweet cash. “Did you see them? They’ll keep going at this weird ouroboros of not being sure if they’re actually dating or not. I say someone actually has to put on their big boy pants and just tell them outright.”

“I haven’t worn pants in my life, ever,” says Luffy. “But I already told them to date?” Since he’s banned from making any decision involving money, ever, he stays out of the betting.

“No, I mean, actually sit them both down and tell them what idiots they are,” elaborates Chopper, who’d walked in while Nami pulled her magic on Sanji and Zoro. He was originally going to get some seawater for an experiment involving distillation, but betting on his friends’ love lives took more precedence than science. “I think there’ll be a surprising turn of events that leads them both to realize their feelings for each other.”

Robin, who had been observing everything from start to finish with amusement, deigned to give some input. “Not to poke holes into your prediction, but I think a ‘surprising turn of events’ could mean literally anything. I, for one, suggest that we forego betting altogether and focus on locking them both in a room until they work their feelings out together.”

Having somehow snuck into the background and managing to not get noticed, Franky interjects with an “Aw come on, that’s no fun at all! It’ll be way more SUPE--” he’s cut off by frantic shushing from his crewmates. “Ugh, fine -- super, if we bet on how this turns out.”

Brook has nothing else to say except, "There will be lots of kissing, of course! Yo ho ho ho!"

Another bout of hushed discussion later, and the conspirators decide that if Sanji and Zoro haven’t gotten together after one week, they’d heed Robin’s suggestion, yeet the two bumbling idiots into a closet and be done with the whole thing. An impromptu meeting is adjourned, bets are finalized, and the group huddle is dissolved. Everyone goes back to doing whatever they were supposed to be doing beforehand.

Up in the crow’s nest, Zoro, who has just overheard that entire discussion, is contemplating to himself.

Huh, he thinks. Maybe he needed to actually examine why exactly he let himself go along with this competition thing in the first place.

-

Later that night, Sanji’s spelunking down the ship's hold had resulted in a candelabra, a tablecloth, and some wine, and he’s finishing up the baked sea bass that he’d furnished with lemon caper dressing for the meal. He’d set up the dinner like he'd done back at the Baratie, which seemed to him like a part of his life that happened so long ago, even though he knew it couldn't be less than a year ago that he was assistant chef, serving tables because they were understaffed.

He sighs. He didn't know what he was thinking, taking this so seriously. He'd gotten so caught up in the crew's hijinks earlier, and now he'd prepared a whole dinner for what, exactly? Zoro probably wouldn't even show up. This was just a huge joke, both to him and the crew. And here Sanji was, the butt of the joke once more. It was honestly kind of sad, how after all this time, he still had no idea how to go about this whole romance thing.

Sanji’s working himself up over aggressively rearranging the bass around on the plate and deciding on whether or not to just eat the two servings of bass that he doesn’t notice that Zoro’s behind him until he hears him speak up. “Oi, cook.”

The said cook jumps and turns around, “Wha-- hey, mosshead, your dinner's not ready yet! Go back upstairs.”

Zoro raises an eyebrow. “Then why, exactly, d'you have a whole two platters of food for?”

“That's for me. I am... very hungry.” Gods, Sanji wants a cigarette. Or two. 

"Uh huh." Zoro looks even more serious than usual. "Listen, about this whole.. _boyfriends_ thing."

And there it was. "Yeah, I know. I took this whole thing way too seriously, when it was a whole joke after all, and I realized it way too late, _I know_."

“What? No,” says the swordsman, annoyed. “That wasn’t the point I was getting to. At all.”

"Then what point are you trying to get at?"

"What I'm saying is that, you are an absolute bastard, and that," Zoro trails off.

"... And that what?" Sanji is three seconds from hurling this asshole out of the kitchen.

"You know!" He makes an imploring face at the cook, as if he's been cursed to not be able to say exactly what. "This whole competition thing has.."

Oh.

_Oh._

This man was really going to disintegrate into dust if he expressed the tiniest bit of affection, wasn't he?

Oh, well. Sanji was fine with that. "Yeah?" He makes sure to sound as clueless as possible. Maybe this whole endeavor wasn't for nothing.

In between their arguments, when it's silent, he sees someone he cares about so much, it scares him sometimes. Zoro may think he may not show it, but Sanji sees how he strays a little too close to him during fights. Not that he doesn't do any inching towards the swordsman, though. He hasn't really let anyone in this close, not since...

He shrugs the thought off.

Zoro glares at him. He looks up at the ceiling in exasperation, then back at Sanji. "Boyfriends! Let's be boyfriends!"

Sanji grins. God, this was so awkward, but he didn't care. "Absolutely. Now, we have a romantic dinner to attend to." And just because he can't help himself, he grabs Zoro by the shoulders and smothers him in a kiss. "I'm still the better boyfriend, idiot."

They have a nice candlelight dinner that evening by the stars.

-

Chopper leans over his chair to watch the two men outside enjoying their meals. It's a bit of a difficult maneuver, but he manages. "So, does this mean I win the bet?"

The rest of the table collectively shrugs. "I'm going to blame this on Franky," Nami says sourly.

"Hey! No need to fling around accusations there!" Nami groans and picks at her food. She mourns for her lost coin, forlorn.

This was so sad.

But hey. At least the two idiots finally got together.

**Author's Note:**

> zoro, pulling flowers out from Somewhere with the power of *love*: guess what shithead i love u  
> sanji, dipping zoro down and smooching him: reverse uno card idiot
> 
> EDIT 21/12/2020: i went back and fixed details that i thought didn't flow as well with the rest of the fic


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